Naugatuck Family to Help With Libyan Liberation

Fuad Hrezi fled Libya in 1981 in search of educational and employment opportunities in the United States.

Since then he’s graduated college, held a successful career and fathered seven children with his wife, Hanadi. And on Tuesday, the proud father watched his third child, Muad, receive a diploma at Naugatuck High School. Muad, who is headed to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is the second Hrezi boy to attend college on a running scholarship.

And while Fuad Hrezi is forever thankful for the opportunities he’s received in the US, he’s headed back home to help rebuild in Libya whose dictatorial leader of more than 40 years, Moammar Gaddafi, was killed on Oct. 20.

“It’s an exciting time in Libya,” Fuad Hrezi said. “So I decided to move back and help as much as I can with the liberation of Libya. Libya now is like America 200 years ago.

“It’s going to be a transition time for two or three years all of the educated people who live in the west to come back and help Libya,” he said. “The reason most of us were here was Gadhafi and there’s no more Gadhafi.”

Muad Hrezi, the new graduate who finished 14^th in the national high school 5,000 meter run, said he’s happy for his parents and doesn’t mind the move.

“I never really believed it until we started buying boxes,” he said. “You always knew that as much as my parents loved it here, they wanted to go back and it’s great that they have the opportunity.”